Fallout 3 / New Vegas 0.232

[Marcurios]

@Boris
Well, after some testing (swapping textures for sand) i have come to the conclusion that it is NOT the default texture
that is used where the shadows are, it seems to be a few different textures from the landscape folder that get used randomly.
i managed to isolate a few, but i don't think that is very interesting for you, since it ain't a model/mesh.
All objects just darken correctly where shadows are, only terrain doesn't.

But don't waste too much time on it Boris, it's not very bad, only sometimes it is very clear in the desert of New Vegas where there is sand all around
if there is some grass on the sand then the shadows are from rocky ground, but i don't care about that all that much.

I'm happy enough with the ENB as it is.

[dehydrated]

The ground can have multiple textures blended together so you don't get as much awful tiling and so the ground texture can transition between areas. ENB's shadows seem to be sampling from, darkening, and then drawing with the bottom-most texture, so sometimes you wind up with, say, a rocky texture in the shadow of a bush that's on sand. It looks a bit odd, but personally I can survive considering how great the shadows look for their relatively cheap cost.

I wish my water surfaces weren't so eff'd up though; the buffer that holds the water surface when underwater, looking up, or when looking at small non-world water objects (like the water in a bathtub) is getting clobbered when ENB is on, but looks normal when it's off (toggled in real time via use effect hotkey).

[Rubber-De-Flubber]

.

[dehydrated]

I have water displacement off (my problem looks far different than the flickering water displacement causes). I also have multisampling off. You can see pictures of the problem here:
http://enbdev.com/enbseries/forum/viewt ... =21&t=2505

[Marcurios]

@Boris,

You have any idea why my game periodically freezes if i enable these "ExpandSystemMemoryX64=true && ReduceSystemMemoryUsage=true" ?
If i have these enabled, my game never crashes but freezes up very often.

Does the ExpandSystemMemoryX64 mean that if the VRAM is full the game can use system RAM if neccesary ?

I do have 3GB VRAM now so i probably do not need the system RAM feature, if it is what i think it is anyway.

[ENBSeries]

ExpandSystemMemoryX64 is system memory defragmentation feature, it was developed for Skyrim, but never tested on Fallout. Side effect can be crashes or freezes, this depends from game engine code. Variable is useful, but practically much less than when memory manager enabled completely without it, try without it enabled. It have nothing to do with vram. Why freezes occur in other cases - multithreading deadlocks, why they not happen without my memory manager i don't know and only can guess it's because of longer time to load each texture and mesh as i make their copies, validating them, compressing and pushing to enbhost.exe memory space.

[Marcurios]

Aha, system memory defrag, i understand.
This game is known for it's bad multithreading capabilities, the game crashes a lot when using more then 2 cores.
That's why adding iNumHWThreads=2 to the [general] section in the falloutprefs.ini is imperative for stability.

Oh it does happen without your memory manager, only the freezes are much shorter in duration.
Actually, your memory manager helps to make the game more smooth, it happens far less with your manager enabled.
Only the defrag function intensifies the behaviour a lot.
I'm not saying that it is the same thing that happens cause i can't look in the PC itself and i never bothered to debug the programs.

the game runs best if i set it like this.

[MEMORY]
ExpandSystemMemoryX64=false
ReduceSystemMemoryUsage=false
DisableDriverMemoryManager=true
DisablePreloadToVRAM=false
EnableUnsafeMemoryHacks=false
ReservedMemorySizeMb=512
VideoMemorySizeMb=3072
EnableCompression=true

If configured like this it is a major improvement to vanilla, much smoother and much more stable.

[ENBSeries]

With such setting memory manager not enabled at all, amount of vram or ram is same, no changes at all, just a simple thing against drivers by DisableDriverMemoryManager=true.

[DragonWrath]

Dear Boris...

You sir are an absolute genius when it comes to ENBs and ENBoost functions. I created this account to do one thing and one thing only which is to let you know how much of an impact ENBoost has had on my game and to thank you for the results of your work. It is EXCEEDINGLY rare for me to make an account, let alone to make one for the sole purpose of leaving only a single message/post.

Now, onto what I came here to tell you, I tested this extensively (doing each test 3+ times and varying settings and different things such as effects on/off, the fake fullscreen window built in, with and without vsync, etc). These are my results and why I am so happy I found out that your enb .232 had ENBoost built into it.

First up, ultra settings for New Vegas Ultimate:
45-70fps in game
CPU usage - focused on one core - 70%+ usage, other 3 cores around 10-15 fps
GPU usage - 30-40%

With tools (NVSR, NVSE, New Vegas Configurator, and 4gb.exe):
55-70fps
CPU usage - core1: 75%, core2: 25-30%, core 3&4: 10% (and that's with the 4 cores enabled in the .ini)
GPU usage - 40%

With Mods & optimal settings/tools:
25-35ish fps in towns
35-45 (SOMEtimes 50)fps out in the wasteland away from towns
5-15fps inside casinos with 30+ NPCs or certain AWOP areas
CPU Usage - Core1: 95%, Core2: 40%, core 3&4: 10-15%
GPU Usage - 35-40%

Major Mods (that can affect performance) that I have installed:
1) NVEC Complete (mod compilation: adds a LOT of items, gear, important bugfixes, and in some places a LOT of NPCs especially in casinos, several quest mods such as New Vegas Bounties 1&2, and some more things)
2) A World of Pain (adds a LOT of NPCs and enemies to the wasteland and a ton of new locations and items)
3) Project Nevada - Overhaul mod+many new items and weapons
4) Tales from the Burning Sands 1.3 - Adds locations and quests to the wasteland
5) New Bison Steve Lucky Casino and Hotel (player home+casino+few NPCs and locations and a few items)
and a few more but you get the general idea, those are my bigger mods (with NVEC being the biggest by far)


And for the meat of this post:

Since installing ENBoost (with all mods still installed):
35-50 fps in towns (10fps boost)
50-65 fps in wasteland away from towns
25-40 fps in the casinos with 30+ NPCs
Cpu usage - 70-90% across ALL 4 cores for the first time !
Gpu usage - 35-90% depending on area and settings.

The difference between having effects enabled and disable is very negligible... as in it changed my fps by less than 5 when enabled or disabled which was surprising. All of this is on Ultra settings as well.

So thank you VERY much Boris for having ported this over in the first place, my game is now fully stutter free and is now far smoother even at 30fps than it EVER was at 60 without enboost, and for that I sincerely do thank you very deeply. I WILL be donating money as soon as I have some I can spare. You deserve to be rewarded for what you have done thus far because without your ENBoost, I would still have major performance issues, stutters, and general frustrations.

I will also leave you with a thought about the Nexus... Do NOT take them seriously as there are a LOT of idiots who don't even know how to make a simple merge patch with FNVEdit (there's even a video tutorial by gopher that covers it very well), who don't read the readme files, or even bother reading the descriptions to see if certain mods are imcompatible. They can't even be bothered to tweak or modify settings themselves to find/solve a problem, hell most of them can't even be bothered to use google for 5 minutes to try and find a solution to a problem, but instead wish to have everything handed to them, or tailored to work perfectly for them on the first try because they are too lazy and/or stupid/selfish. Not everyone on the nexus is like that, however the majority IS unfortunately so I would not take anything most of them say. If the comment is negative, has no constructive criticism, lacking in useful fact filled feedback, or anything at all that isn't helpful/useful information at all then completely ignore them because they aren't worth the time.

And having said all that, I shall now take my leave and wish you the best. Btw, depression sucks and I understand as I suffer from it as well along with also being Bi-Polar, have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, 2 forms of anti-social disorders, and severe pain. I wish you the best and hope you are able to get out of your depression.

Signed,
DragonWrath

[ENBSeries]

Thanks